(To Dory, explaining why he doesn't want her around)I just can't afford any more delays and you're one of those fish that cause delays. Sometimes it's a good thing. There's a whole group of fish; they're.... delay fish.

(While Dory is weeping about the possibility of him not liking her) No, of course I like you. It's because I like you, I don't want to be with you. It's a complicated... emotion.

(To Nemo, when he's swum out to sea) Get back here! I said get back here, now!

If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny and I know funny! I'm a clownfish!!

(About Squirt) It's like he's trying to speak to me, I know it!

(When Gerald the pelican swallows him) No! I didn't come this far to be breakfast!

[Yelling to Dory, when they are being "swallowed" by the whale] No you can't, you think you can do these things but you can't, Nemo! [stops and gasps] (Marlin said the same to Nemo)

You know you're really cute, but I don't know what you're saying! Say the first thing again!

Just keep swimming!(Introduced by Dory, a theme repeated throughout the film by Marlin, Nemo, a chorus of fish trapped in a trawling net near the end of the film and others. When Nemo is in the fish tank and is trying to be put in a bag for Darla by the dentist - no matter what obstacles you face in life, just keep swimming!)

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do, we swim, swim. Ha ha ha ha hoo hoo I love to swi-im, when you WAAAAANT to swim you want to keep on...

I suffer from short-term memory loss. [Marlin: Short-term memory loss? (Dory nods) Marlin: I don't believe it] No, it's true! I forget things almost instantly. It runs in my family! Well I mean... at least... I think it does. Hum... Where are they? ... Can I help you?

That's a funny thing to promise. Well, you can't never let anything happen to him, then nothing would ever happen to him.

I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come on, little Squishy. [stung by jellyfish] Ow! Bad Squishy, bad Squishy!

No. No, you can't... Stop! Please don't go away. Please? No one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave... if you leave... I just, I remember things better with you. I do, look. P. Sherman, 42... 42... I remember it, I do. It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And-and I look at you, and I... I'm home. [close to tears] Please... I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget.

Hi, I'm Dory, and, well, I don't think I've ever eaten a fish.

[repeated line; to Marlin] There, there. It's all right. It'll be OK.

(To Marlin) Sure it'll be all right. You'll see.

Nothin' in m'noggin'. (from the trailer)

...Are...Are you my conscience?

A boat! Hey, I've seen a boat, it passed by not too long ago! I-it went, um, this way! Yeah, it went this way! follow me!

(About to be scooped up by pelican) DUCK!! (Marlin: That's not a duck, that's a pelican!)

Give it up old man, you can't fight evolution, I was built for speed!

A game! AH! I love games! Pick me!

Something about tentacles, got it. On your marks get set GO!

Would you quit it? What, the ocean isn't big enough for you or something like that? Is there a problem buddy? Huh? Huh? Do ya, do ya, do ya? You wanna piece of me? Yeah, yeah! Ooh, I'm scared now! What?

[exasperated] I don't know where I am... I don't know what's going on. I think I lost somebody but I, I can't remember... and I can't remember...

Oh, I saw the whole thing, dude! First, you were like, whoa! And then we were like, WHOA! And then you were like, whoa. [Marlin: What are you talking about?] You, Mini-Man! Takin' on the jellies. You got serious thrill issues, dude.

Oh, man. Hey, no hurling on the shell, dude, okay? Just waxed it.

It's awesome, Jellyman. Little dudes are just eggs, we leave 'em on the beach to hatch, and then — koo-koo ka-choo! — They find their way back to the Big Ol' Blue.

Grab shell, dude!

[while surfing the tide of the Eastern Australian Current] Righteous! Righteous!

Peach: [yawns] Morning. [gasps] It's morning, everyone! Today's the day! The sun is shining, the tank is clean, and we are getting out of— [gasps] The tank is clean. [The camera zooms out to reveal a very clean tank.]THE TANK IS CLEAN!!!

Marlin: It's just a good thing I was here. If I hadn't arrived in time, I wouldn't know what...

Pearl: Sir, he wasn't gonna go.

Tad: Yeah, he was too afraid!

Nemo: [turns to Tad] No, I wasn't!!

Marlin: This does not concern you, kids, and you're lucky I don't tell your parents you weren't out there. [to Nemo] You know you can't swim well.

Nemo: I can swim fine, Dad, okay?!

Marlin: No, it's not okay. You shouldn't be anywhere near here! Okay, I was right. You know what? Let's start school in a year or 2. [starts to take Nemo away]

Nemo: [jerks out of his grasp] No, Dad! Just because you're scared of the ocean—

Marlin: Clearly you're not ready and you're not coming back until you are. You think you can do these things, but you just can't, Nemo!

Nemo: I hate you. [Marlin is shocked at what Nemo just said]

Mr. Ray: Well, Nemo — all new explorers must answer a science question.

Nemo: [worried] Okay.

Mr. Ray: You live in what kind of home?

Nemo: [confidently] In an anemone-ne-anem-menem-anemone! [not so confidently] Anemone.

Mr. Ray: Okay, okay. Don't hurt yourself.

Bill: I had a tough time when my oldest went out on the drop off.

Marlin: They just gotta grow up some--the drop off?! They're going to the drop off?! What-what-what are-what are we, insane?! Why don't we just fry 'em up now and serve 'em with chips?! [swims away quickly]

Bob: Hey Marty, calm down.

Marlin: Don't tell me to calm down, Pony-Boy!

Bob: [pause] "Pony-Boy"?

Bill: Ya know, for a Clownfish, he really isn't that funny.

Ted: Pity.

Pearl: See this tentacle? It's actually shorter than all my other tentacles. But you can't really tell, especially when I twirl 'em like this.

Sheldon: I'm H2O intolerant. [sneezes, getting blown backwards]

Tad: I'm obnoxious!

Nemo: [sees a boat] What's that?

Tad: I know what that is! Oh! Oh! Sandy Plankton saw one, he calls-he said it was called a--a butt!

Pearl: Wow, that's a pretty big butt.

Gurgle: [frantic about the filthy aquarium] Don't you people realize we are swimming in our own-

Peach: Shh! Here he comes!

Marlin: Look! Already it's half empty.

Dory: Hmm. I'd say it's half full.

Marlin: Stop that! It's half empty!

Marlin: No, no, they took him away! I have to find the boat--

Dory: A boat? Hey, I've seen a boat!

Marlin: You did?

Dory: Yeah, it passed by not too long ago!

Marlin: A white one?

Dory: Hi. I'm Dory.

Marlin: Which way did it go?

Dory: It went, um... this way! It went this way! Follow me!

Marlin: Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!

Dory: No problem!

[A few seconds later, Dory starts zig-zagging in front of Marlin, trying to "outrun" him and glancing back]

Marlin: A whale! Because you asked for help, and now we're stuck here!

Dory: [looking around her] Wow. A whale. You know, I speak whale--

Marlin: No, you're insane! You can't speak whale! I have to get out! [bumps into the whale's baleen] I have to find my son! [bumps again] I have to tell him... [keeps bumping] ...How... old... sea... turtles... are!

Dory: [the whale speaks to her] Okay, that one was a little tougher. He either said we should go to the back of the throat, or he wants a root beer float.

Marlin: Of course he wants us to go there! That's eating us! [rubs his tail on the whale's tongue] How do I taste, Moby? Do I taste good?! [to Dory] You tell him I'm not interested in being lunch!

Dory: Okay. He-e-e-e-—

Marlin: Stop talking to him! [the tongue suddenly goes vertical]

Both: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!

[Dory and Marlin grab onto the taste buds to prevent from falling into the throat.]

Marlin: What is going on?!

Dory: I'll check! Waaaaaaaaaat...?

Marlin: No, no more whale, you can't speak whale!

Dory: Yes, I can!

Marlin: No, you can't! You think you could do these things, but you can't, Nemo! [stops and gasps]

[The whale makes a sound.]

Dory: Okay! [lets go]

Marlin: Dory! [grabs her]

Dory: He says, "It's time to let go"! Everything's going to be all right!

Marlin: How do you know, how do you know something bad isn't gonna happen?!

Dory: I don't!

Gill: From this moment on, you shall now be known as... "Sharkbait".

Bloat, Gurgle, Bubbles: Sharkbait, hoo ha ha!

Gill: Welcome, Brother Sharkbait!

Bloat, Gurgle, Bubbles: Sharkbait, hoo ha ha!

Gill: Enough with the Sharkbait.

Gurgle: Sharkbait! Hoo... bap ba doo.

Marlin: But, but, dude. How do you know when they're ready (to go out into the real world)?

Crush: Well, you never really know you know, but when they know, you'll know, ya know?

[Darla is ready for the dentist]

Dentist: Alright, let's see those pearly whites.

Darla: I'm a piranha. They're the Amazon.

Dentist: And a piranha's a fish. Just like your present.

Darla: I get a fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy.

Dentist: [Picks up a playing dead Nemo] Oh no, poor little guy.

Bloat: He's dead.

Gill: SHARKBAIT!!!

Dentist: He he he, must've left your present in the car, sweetie. [chuckles] I'll go and get it.

Gill: He's still alive!

Bloat: What's happening, why is he playing dead?

Gill: He's gonna get flushed down the toilet. He's gonna get outta here.

Deb: Yay!!!

Bloat: He's gonna get flushed!

Gurgle: What a smart little guy. [Takes Nemo to the trash can]

Gill: Oh no, not the trash can!

Bubbles: Nemo, NO!

Nigel: [arrives with Marlin and Dory in his mouth] Hey, hey. I found his dad!

Originally, I was going to bring all that stuff in as a series of flashbacks, by way of explanation as to why Marlon was the way he was. But the more I worked on it, the more irritating Marlon’s fussiness and over-protective nature became. It really started to become a problem.

Then someone said why don’t you move all that up to the front? Initially, I resisted but when I finally tried it, it worked very well. Once we’d established Marlon’s history we could get on with the main message of the film, y’know, that it’s a tough world out there and you have to be careful.

By far the biggest challenge was getting the water right. Water has always been a Holy Grail for CG animators because it’s not a fixed medium, it’s constantly shifting and changing.

For this film we had to learn how to portray the way that water breaks on the surface of the ocean, and how water would look inside a whale’s mouth. Those were the real money shots.

To get that right we researched a lot of ocean-set films and documentaries and then we broke the ocean down into its, like, constituent parts. But there were only a few of those shots.

But, for the most part we were shooting down in the deeps, in the void, where water works in different ways. And, again, we had to learn new techniques. For instance, to give the impression of the constant movement of currents, we let the characters drift slightly off the frame, so that they were constantly having to swim back into the centre of the screen. You don’t really notice that because you’re concentrating on the action. Then we added the constantly changing colours, the way that fish lose their definition and colour as they draw away from you, and the eternal drift of food and other particles

Way back during the first beginnings of Toy Story, believe it or not. I was at an aquarium, and I was new to computer graphics, and I remember just looking at the underwater environment and thinking we could mimic this exactly in computer graphics.

So that was on the back burner of my brain all through Toy Story and A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. I kept thinking about what story I'd want to tell in an underwater setting, and I remembered this dentist's office that I went to as a kid. It had a tank in the lobby, and I used to think about whether those fish wanted to go home, and what it must be like to be in this tacky little tank with a treasure chest, and a scuba diver. All those kind of things.